iPilot

Time will tell but if you walk the halls at the major aviation Universities all the way down to the local FBO you won't see too many students. I think the jig is up and getting pilots to flood the market on the promise of a good job is over. Hopefully this will turn things around. That and possibly the new ATP, duty rules.

Bucking Bar

and I'd be there with him.

Groundhog

I see where they interviewed Roger Cohen and Gordon Bethune. Obviously there is a right-wing corporate slant to the piece.

Hog

Carl Spackler

Here is the future for our current group of RJ pilots.

1. No chance of working for a major due to no growth and no retirements
2. RJ pilots make marginal gains for themselves
3. Angry management teams at the RJ airlines start feeder airlines for their RJ airlines
4. New pilots work for ridiculous wages to build time in the hope of working for the RJ airlines - "where the big bucks are"
5. Growth at RJ's stop due to growth at RJ feeder airlines
6. RJ feeder airlines get bigger equipment
7. RJ pilots scream bloody murder at the RJ feeder airline pilots because they are working for ridiculous wages.

Repeat as necessary.

Carl

DAWGS

+1 on the march. ALPA national should set a date! We need to keep this issue front and center. Americans have very short memories.

Bucking Bar

Lets not forget, the current state of the regional airlines is the result of mainline outsourcing and ALPA's belief in a two tiered airline industry.

This core belief that "we don't want to do that flying" was recently re validated with D-ALPA's vote to divest Compass.

Repeat as necessary "outsourcing is good."

So no, other than whining about pay rates, ALPA is not about to actually fight the system it helped to create. Without unity, there is going to be no relief to low pay. Trying to shame a shameless industry is nothing more than a political diversion.That is the absolute truth.

Carl Spackler

In EVERY case, outsourcing of flying by the majors to regionals was "given up" by unions at management's total insistence. No union offered this up as a good idea. Wouldn't it have been great if unions gave up this item, but no pilots took the interviews to willingly become low-paid servants. I turned down an interview with American in 1982 because it was going to be their first B scale class. I REALLY needed the job, but I didn't want to work for second class wages.

To the young pilots out there: join the military, fly cargo, fly corporate. But DO NOT give your skills to a low paying regional that steals any hope of you joining a major.

Repeat as necessary.

Carl

Bucking Bar

Not exactly true, but nice political revisionism for junior guys who have stagnated for a decade. Would you like a copy of your Zipline document where your MEC touted the value of relaxing scope? They were quite proud of their accomplishment at the time, since getting "credit" for outsourcing was a new concept at the time.* Trading something of value for money is the definition of "Sell." The Delta MEC did even better with the "credits" they received for outsourcing most of the 737-200 and 727's flying, which they described in their Negotiator's Notepads.

These negotiations took place years before bankruptcy. ALPA sold junior members flying to achieve these goals:
(1) Fix the dreaded "B Scale" by moving it off the property
(2) Preserve as much as was possible of pre-deregulation pay and working conditions for the preferred group of pilots at the top of the list
(?) I also think they were intentionally diluting the negotiating power of the wholly owned's. Reference your documents on the restrictions PREVENTING Northwest from ordering, purchasing, or financing these outsourced airplanes. The effect was to add additional NON UNION players to whipsaw against in negotiations. These restrictions did not save any money which prevented bankruptcy, so before you make that argument, it has been preempted by historical fact.

* Reference ZipLine 10-18-04, among the bullet points ... "Forty additional 50 seaters...No other pilot group has received any dollar credits for such a provision" and what became the birth of Compass and the loss of the E175.

Carl Spackler

What you're talking about is what happened after outsourcing was lost during negotiations. After the union gave it up, then union officials went out to try and make themselves not look as weak as they were. I say again, no union offered this up as a good idea to negotiate away. Nobody. Only after the fact covering of one's backside.

Now, care to respond to the other part of my post?

Carl

Bucking Bar

Carl,

That's all correct, but it exists because we went along with outsourcing. We gutted our Constitution's Merger and Fragmentation provisions a decade before the end of the last century. We all should have voted to put Comair and ASA on the Delta list back at the 2000 BOD. (you guys voted too, although I clearly understand where the leadership was on this) We should have made scope our mother of all wars. Instead we traded one pilot's job to improve the position of another pilot. This sort of horsetrading is poison to our union.

Now, if you would be so kind as to respond to the EFFECT of the whipsaw provisions which is what Colgan and every other regional is having to do battle with: